Warning over postgraduate education crisis

Richard Garner

Richard Garner has been Education Editor of The Independent for 12 years and writing about the subject for 34 years. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a disc jockey in London pubs and clubs and for a hospital radio station. His main hobbies are cricket (watching these days) and theatre. On his days off, he is most likelt to be found at Lord’s or the King’s Head Theatre Club.

Vice-chancellors warned today of the "economically disastrous and socially divisive" neglect of postgraduate education in the UK.

Leaders of 11 higher-education institutions have combined to demand action to avert a crisis as figures show funding for postgraduate students is being phased out. The number receiving financial aid for taking up a research Masters will drop by 47 per cent this autumn from 786 to 413.

Only two European countries – the UK and Andorra – plus Kazakhstan have fewer than 10 per cent of students going on to postgraduate study.